Air travel has become a common mode of transportation throughout the world in the last half-century. As air travel has increased, there has been a need for airliners capable of transporting larger and larger numbers of passengers and more and more cargo. In response to this need, aircraft manufacturers have produced larger aircraft including, for example, the Boeing 747 and the Douglas DC-10, each of which is capable of carrying more than 300 passengers. Currently, these jumbo jets are some of the largest capacity aircraft available.
There has been a need for some time for an airliner capable of carrying many more passengers than today's jumbo jets. For particular routes such as, for example, certain Pacific rim routes, the transportation by air of up to 1,000 passengers on a single flight would be highly efficient and would reduce operating costs for the airlines. There have been some attempts to develop a "1,000 passenger" airline. For example, Airbus Industries has proposed a double-decker airliner designated as the "A3XX", which, if built, would be the world's largest commercial transport. Airbus projects that this aircraft, which has two overlying passenger decks, would be capable of transporting up to 1,000 passengers to fulfill the demand for travel on crowded routes. It is reported that other aircraft manufacturers have also been developing super jumbo jets that would be similar to the A3XX.
While the Airbus A3XX and similar super jumbo jet designs have been proposed and perhaps even built, and while they may at least partially address the need for high capacity airliners, they nevertheless are plagued by various problems and shortcomings inherent in their respective designs. For example, all of these aircraft are simply enlarged versions of traditional jet aircraft designs having a generally cylindrical central fuselage with wings and a tail section and all of the passengers are accommodated in the central fuselage. A super jumbo jet of such design creates a number of inescapable problems. For example, the aircraft itself is so large that it cannot be parked and accommodated at many existing airport gate facilities. Many gates would have to be enlarged at substantial expense or some means for shuttling passengers to the aircraft and loading them would have to be devised. Further, even if the aircraft could be parked at a gate, the check-in and management of up to 1,000 passengers and their luggage through one gate would require extensive re-design and configuration of existing airport gates. The boarding process itself would take an unacceptably long period of time and ticket agents would have to man the gates much earlier in order to handle all of the ticketing procedures that are necessary for check-in. Similar problems would exist at gates of destination airports, where up to 1,000 passengers disembarking the aircraft would have to be handled at a single gate facility.
Another problem with proposed super jumbo jet designs is related to emergency evacuation of the aircraft itself. In order to meet FAA standards, super jumbo jets must be provided with a large number of exit doors or hatches, and each of the hatches must be provided with inflatable slides, rafts, and other required safety equipment. The proposed Airbus A3XX, for example, would be provided with a total of 16 exit doors. All of these exit doors add to the weight and complexity of the airframe itself and managing the emergency egress of up to 1,000 passengers through 16 exits could be extremely difficult.
An additional problem with proposed super jumbo jets relates to their size and specifically to the long throw landing gear required to support the aircraft on the runway. Many existing airport runways simply could not accommodate such an aircraft and vast upgrades in airport and runway facilities would be required at many of the world's airports.
Other problems with a super jumbo jet design include the massive loss of life that would occur in a single fatal crash of such an aircraft, the inability to transport large numbers of passengers and also large amounts of cargo at the same time, and the sheer operating expense in fuel and maintenance required for such a large and complex structure.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved high density, high capacity air transport system capable of transporting up to 1,000 passengers by air without requiring any modification of currently existing airport gate facilities and without congesting such gate facilities during boarding and unboarding of the aircraft. Such an aircraft should be sufficiently flexible to carry both passengers and cargo simultaneously, should incorporate emergency safety measures and devices that virtually assure survival of the passengers in the event of an in-flight emergency or aircraft failure, and should be highly efficient in operation and maintenance. It is to the provision of such a transport system and to a related method of transporting large numbers of passengers and large cargo loads by air that the present invention is primarily directed.